


The Sidewalk's Flower Under the Rain

by orphan_account



Category: K (Anime)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Developing Relationships, Gen, HOMRA family AU, M/M, Mentions of past abuse (canonical), Mikoto adopts both Saruhiko and Anna as kids AU, References to background information in K - Lost Small World/SIDE:RED etc., more relevant tags later
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-11-13
Updated: 2015-11-13
Packaged: 2018-05-01 08:57:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,454
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5199884
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Mikoto looks at him, even though his arms stay by his sides—and that woman Kisa will surely come and take him away again—Saruhiko reaches out and takes it. Mikoto's warm hand.</p><p>Years later, this is what Saruhiko knows—everything will be fine as long as Misaki keeps smiling. As long as he hones his magic in this world without kings to revere. As long as there's a warm bar, with its warm people... As long as there's Anna, and Totsuka, and Kusanagi-san, and...</p><p>But in the end, it's not as if he'd come to expect it. Someone like him having "a home where you belong."</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Sidewalk's Flower Under the Rain

**Author's Note:**

> Er, basically...I wanted to write Homra fam AU with Saruhiko and Anna.
> 
> Useful mentions!
> 
> Misaki and Saruhiko's way of acting around each other during their middle school years is based off of their interactions in the K - Lost Small World novel and manga (period I and II), except here they're more self-aware about their huge crushes. Kind of.
> 
> Since it's AU anyway, shifted ages around so that the younger cast is around Sarumi's age, and the older cast are in their early adulthood. So when Saruhiko and Misaki are thirteen, among the HOMRA trio, Totsuka's 20, Mikoto is 22 (Reisi too), and Izumo is 24. Anna is eight.
> 
> First name/last name basis and honorific basis may be changed from canon due to difference in circumstance. For example, in the novels and manga, Totsuka calls Saruhiko "Fushimi" after a brief stint of referring to him as "Saru-kun." Here Saruhiko's referred to by him as "Saruhiko."

The wide sky is all that connects this small world, this world full of more boundaries and dead ends than children can dream of. Up on the rooftop, Misaki's reaching his hand up, up without really thinking, when Saruhiko, as if thoughtlessly, strokes his fingers against his locks, then draws them back.

“Flower petals really like to stick to your hair, huh...?” Saruhiko muses, and over such an unmanly statement directed at him, Misaki can't help but stick his tongue out. Well, lately he hasn't really been paying as much attention to that sort of thing anyway, because for some reason around Saruhiko, it doesn't really seem to matter. But being told something like that... For a while now, whenever he's been near him, his insides have felt oddly warm.

It's strange, but the feeling isn't something he hates... Even if sometimes, an urge to run away swells up in him, leaving Saruhiko's side would be unthinkable for him.

Just as thoughtlessly, with his palm facing forward as if to show the petals off, Saruhiko says quietly, “Half a sakura. Pretty...” —and something inside Misaki skips, right up into his throat, and he's forced to swallow it down.

Misaki tousles up his own hair—not out of embarrassment or anything—and brings up something he's been excited about, though it's not like he just wants to change the subject.

“S-s-so the project we're working on in Awashima-sensei's class... You said you already had it? The computer parts... So...” He feels shy asking all of a sudden, which makes no sense. “I-I'll be going to your house this time, right?”

Saruhiko raises his gaze from the pink petal in his hand, meeting his.

“...Mm. This time we can go to my apartment.”

Misaki doesn't really catch the tone of his voice, the promise of excitement blooming in his mind.

“R-right!” He gets close to Saruhiko, eyes shining. “Should I bring something? For your parents. Like, a courtesy gift.”

“A courtesy gift...for my parents,” Saruhiko repeats, and there's a hint of confusion in his voice, and something fleeting—a dark look—passes in the fraction of a second from his face, making Misaki's stomach sink, then buoy back, as he wonders if he'd just imagined it. But he'd stared right at him... “Oh. But I didn't bring your mom a courtesy gift...”

Saruhiko, as is rarest for him, looks apologetic. Misaki jumps to straighten his back, and probably says too loudly, “Oh, it's all right! That sort of thing, it can be stressful you know, um... like my mom, she would've tried to feed you twice your weight in food that first time if she realized my best friend brought her something... And she already overstuffed you, right!?”

Misaki's scratching the back of his head again as he remarks bashfully, “It's just, y'know... That ' _him_ ' you've mentioned, before... He sounds sort of strict from what you said, I wouldn't want to give a bad impression...”

At the mention of ' _him_ ,' Saruhiko's gaze narrows.

“Oh, _him._ ” he says, curt. “He's not my dad.”

“—Ah.” _Him_. The last time Saruhiko had mentioned him had been at the sports festival. Misaki had turned, excited, as he'd managed to beat out all the boys in the other classes at the 100 meter dash, cheering along with the bellowing voice of his mom. But his eyes had searched out Saruhiko before anyone—for some reason—and just as they'd landed on him, Saruhiko...he'd collapsed right on the ground.

“ _Saruhiko...!_ ”

The next few moments had been composed of the vague feeling of pushing others aside, and a blur of scenery as his feet pumped with another burst of strength towards the open canopy his class gathered under. Even though Saruhiko had been leaning on the pole beneath it, he had...

In his arms that propped him up, Saruhiko had looked so pale, even paler than usual.

“Dumbass...! I told you to drink more water!” He'd noticed that Saruhiko had seemed to struggle more than he had in the past hour beneath the hot sun, but he'd kept getting distracted by the many events he'd been signed up for—and by that he meant the class had signed him up for them, learning he'd been a star sprinter in elementary school due to someone who'd gone to the same school as him back then being unable to shut his yap—and thus hadn't paid much attention to Saruhiko, with all his stubbornness.

It'd ended up being their large, musclebound gym teacher who'd carried him on his back, and Misaki had inwardly, just a bit, cursed his weak small self.

Saruhiko had woken up in the midst of it, just as they'd gotten to the nurse's station a little farther off, and the idiot had had the nerve to try to push off of Zenjou-sensei—even though Zenjou-sensei had been about to hand him off the nurse by dropping him onto a cot anyway.

“Um... your guardian...?” the already worn-looking Yoshino-sensei had asked hesitantly soon afterward, watching as Misaki had pulled hard at Saruhiko's cheeks in retribution. Misaki hadn't really questioned her use of “guardian” instead of something like “parents” at the time, assuming she might be properly all-encompassing with her terminology. In retrospect, maybe she'd already met the man before—Saruhiko's health has never been the best from Misaki's understanding, and every once in a while he's complained of headaches and migraines.

Saruhiko had scowled (with Misaki assuming it'd been due to his being annoyed at him), and in that moment, Mom had chosen the perfect time to show up with little brother and sister in tow. She'd taken over, all hassle for him and all help for Yoshino-sensei, and the next few minutes had passed by mildly chaotically, to say the least. It'd been only after everyone had either finished up conversing—his mom, smacking him with an embarrassing as hell kiss to end-all, before fretting over Saruhiko with her big mom hands squishing at his cheeks (he seemed unwilling to pull his usual bad faces in front of her), leaving with clamorous siblings—or gotten distracted—Yoshino-sensei, who'd rushed away to take over a bad case regarding a fallen student in the cavalry battle—that he'd realized.

“Stupid...! Your foot!” He must've gotten it cut from a metal protrusion as he'd fallen. A fair bit of blood had already soaked up in Saruhiko's sock.

As Saruhiko grumbled, chugging a water bottle, Misaki had immediately set about to bandage him up properly. What'd followed was a strangely comfortable quiet between the two of them, as the hustle and bustle of sports day became something far away from the world around them.

“So—” Misaki decided to start with, as interrupting good moments awkwardly was something he'd come to specialize in over the years, “um... where is _he_ , anyway? Did he not have the time—I mean, does he have work? That is, if it's okay to ask, of cour—”

Saruhiko's scowl returned, and he'd snorted derisively. “No. He doesn't have work right now.”

“—Oh.”

As if unsatisfied with the silence that had settled back between them afterward, Saruhiko had _tsk_ 'd, elaborating, “I just told him not to bother me. If he came, he'd have taken up a whole entire damn bench trying to take a nap in the middle of everything. It'd have been embarrassing. And those guys—who knows what kinds of stupid things they might've started hollering for 'support.'”

Misaki had perked up at that, having finished cleaning and bandaging the cut. “Your family—they sound kinda fun!” Grinning, he'd gotten a wind for new conversation, and somehow they'd ended up talking as naturally as ever, winding down with completely unrelated thoughts on aliens in distant planets in the sky before they'd been called back to mingle with the class, Misaki having one more event to participate in.

Saruhiko had begun to smile again, so it was alright, he'd thought.

Back atop the rooftop a month later, Misaki's unsure of what kind of expression he makes, but Saruhiko scratches at his cheek, seeming bothered as he glances at Misaki's face.

“He took me in when I was younger, is all,” is what he mumbles finally, dropping his gaze, a hand sliding back to ruffle his own hair. “Mikoto.”

“Mikoto-san...?” Misaki echoes, and the lights in his eyes dance as he excitedly takes in previously unknown information.

“Yeah.” Saruhiko looks oddly timid, and after clearing his throat, he says, “Um. There's a little girl who's...adopted, too...Anna. And—”

“Ah, you have a kid sister like me!?” An idea lightbulbs over his head, and without thinking, he's even closer to Saruhiko than before, noses about to brush. “Hey, should I bring baked goods after all? I was thinking it might seem a little unmanly... But since my little siblings love cookies and stuff, maybe yours would like that kind of thing too?”

“—Yeah... Actually—she likes that sort of thing.” Saruhiko's usually pale face has a strange amount of color flushing in it, and when he continues, it's hesitant. “Actually...we bought these. Uh. Cookie cutters, recently, and she said she wanted to bake with them. And I thought about how you're good at making pineapple-laden food, so I've been wondering...that is...if you might be okay with helping before we start on our project? Making cookies...but at our place. I'm worried I'd mess something up, and _he_ —”

“Definitely!” Misaki exclaims right into his face before he can even finish his sentence, probably a little too loudly again. The thought of being able to spend the day at Saruhiko's a little longer than planned is making him giddy; a silly smile lights up his face. “I can't wait!”

Saruhiko nods, his hair falling over his glasses as it'd been doing lately. _He really needs another haircut..._ Misaki almost reaches a hand up to those locks to brush them aside, just as Saruhiko had thoughtlessly done so before with his hair. He's about to, not all that consciously, question Saruhiko about the redness of his face, too.

Then the bell rings, signifying the end of lunchtime.

 

* * *

 

It's only a few hours later in the middle of classes that he slowly starts to question it, sitting there fiddling with his mechanical pencil.

_I don't have a crush on him... It's not like I have a crush on him..._

Another period passes, and Misaki's hardly taken any notes. He's going to have to look in on Saruhiko's later. And even though Saruhiko might grouch over it, he usually lets him.

 _I don't..._ PDAs are lighting up and vibrating around the classroom. The teacher's smacking Shiro with a booklet in the back. He's staring at the back of Saruhiko's head in that moment, and then it dawns on him.

Up on the rooftop, he'd held Saruhiko's hand for one long minute. As soon as he'd gotten close to him, he'd taken his hand in his. Saruhiko's hand—it'd been warm, so he hadn't thought...

Unlike what his classmates might have come to expect every day, Misaki doesn't vault in reaction, slamming his chair to the ground, or shout incoherently, bringing everything to an eerily silent standstill, and a looming teacher over his head.

_It's not like... It's not like..._

Instead, Misaki sinks as far into his desk as he possibly can, buries his face in his arms, and through a space between them, peeks at Saruhiko again with a red, red face. Saruhiko, who's been nodding off every few seconds, but trying hard not to.

_I have a crush on him...!_

Try as he might, the teacher can't pry Misaki's head from his buried arms after that, so he gives in for the day.

 

* * *

 

Mikoto steps out for a smoke after sleep; when he turns, there's Anna, decked in her red dress and carrying a small black backpack behind her. Like usual, huh, he thinks languidly.

He pockets them, and starts walking. Without a word, she follows, and without a change in motion, he slows to match her short strides.

They head for the convenience store nearby, like usual.

In there, there's not much to buy—he doesn't need a new pack, and Anna only sometimes brings up to the counter strawberries or watermelon candies, or asks the patisserie for a slice of red velvet cake.

But they swing by the frozen isle, and he pauses, right in front of the ice cream selection. It takes him time—unbeknownst to him, two mothers and one child steer clear of the area after noticing his figure. The staff have long grown used to it, though.

“Saruhiko...” he finally says, not looking at the little girl standing beside him. “He's...been liking pineapple lately, right.”

“Saruhiko...” Anna echoes. “Likes a boy.”

Mikoto brings a hand up to scratch the back of his head.

“...That so.” He picks out the coconut pineapple carton, then the vanilla caramel too, just in case.

When they get back, Tatara's leaning over the counter on Izumo's side, feet tapping on the floor and seemingly in cheer, while Izumo's massaging at his temple. It's not a usual scene, not with Izumo at least, not around the ladies that come in here for a drink.

Tatara's murmuring a familiar phrase, “It's fine, it's fine, it'll work out somehow,” and it's not as if Mikoto hadn't noticed as soon as they'd come in, but his thumb is stroking slow circular strokes on Izumo's forearm, soothingly. Izumo smiles back at him, and those smiles together, they almost match each other.

Izumo notices him late; when their eyes meet, his are a little bleary with fatigue, clearing only when he notices Anna standing there. Tatara's all business, jumping over the counter—“Don't I keep telling ya to use the door, Totsuka...?”—and a singsong tone ringing out as he greets them. “ _Okaeriii!_ ”

“ _Tadaima..._ ” Anna responds in a softer tone. Mikoto glances over at one of the spare couches.

_Ah._

“Gave birth to a big one,” he says, deadpan.

“No one popped a twelve-year-old out today!” Izumo yells immediately, to the trill of Tatara's laughter and a few stares from less regular customers.

Like he'd thought, that small lump he'd noticed in the periphery of his vision was a kid. Another one. A small blond scruffy-haired boy huddled with his arms wrapped around his knees sitting on the edge of the couch, playing with its long since worn threads. Under the freshly-laundered hoodie, the one Saruhiko hadn't worn in a few months due to the fact that his arms had started sticking out of them, maybe the unkeen eye wouldn't catch it. But those legs beneath capris are stick thin, and the blue bruises ringing his neck and ankles are prominent enough to be noticed by anyone with a passing glance.

“Kousuke-kun found him the other day.” Tatara says softly.

Fujishima Kousuke, the kid whose parents own the flower shop across the block, though around the neighborhood they're more low-key renown for the dozens and dozens of cats who've somehow made the area surrounding the place their home. Mysteriously. He had a habit of wandering off with Anna and coming back with stray armadillos, sloths, and ten-ton capybaras. Sometimes, even cats. Saruhiko surreptitiously avoids him.

That explained the past several days. He'd slept, woken up to a hurried phone call from Izumo and a closed bar, and slept again. More or less.

Izumo gives him a strained smile when their eyes meet again.

“Sorry, King,” Tatara says in earnest. “Kusanagi-san took care of most of the details... We wanted to explain the situation properly, but everything went down the evening you had work, so...”

He remembers that evening's rain. When he'd opened his eyes once, Saruhiko had appeared before him, face lit under the dark light streaming in from the window, and his gaze—tense. Like usual. So he'd closed his eyes and dozed, for five minutes, or thirty, lulled into a less uneasy one with the quiet, familiar rustling of the boy nearby. Then a phone had rung, not his, but Saruhiko's. Fragments of conversation floated beneath the wash of rain and silence, reaching his ears. _The boy that_ _Anna_ _and—_ “Mm. Is Anna okay?” _Ah, yeah, she's— i_ _n any case, there's been a bit of..._ _regardin'_ _T_ _otsuka_ _— this idiot... He'll be—_ “Should I be surprised...” _We'll be_ _a little_ _—_ _are y_ _ou_ _gonna_ _—_ “No, tomorrow is a holiday so I'm going.” _Saruhiko..._ _remember—_ _y'know Mikoto—_ “...I know already. Can you not bring it up like this?” _Right... C_ _an_ _you_ _..._ “...Fine. Got it.”

When he'd opened his eyes Saruhiko was peering down at him again, but not quite looking at him. He'd pressed his phone to his hand. Izumo had been brief—“There was a...incident between some kids Tatara got caught up in. He's not the one wounded. Anna's beside me, she's fine. I'll be takin' care of the situation. Mikoto—” That was when his own phone had rung. “—We'll be back soon. Since Saruhiko's at your side, don't push it. Take care of him.”

_A world covered in ash. He searched through it endlessly, this inescapable world, even though these chains that bound him with its links he'd never agreed on weighed him down to the point his ankles might twist and break._

_Even though all the buildings had crumbled to mere shells and scarred frames, even though there was little left but ash. Tatara, Izumo, Anna, and... If he could find them—_

_Eventually, he came across a clearing, with its green forest covered by the promise of winter—of silence and of sleep before spring. Just before it, in the world of ash, stood a boy._

_The boy had tears streaming down his eyes and a wavering smile on his face. He held knives in his hands, long, thin and sharp._

“ _If you hadn't drawn them all to you, then maybe...” he said, and his voice broke, just a little. He'd grown a little older—colder. “Even though all you want to do is self-destruct, you drew them... Don't you care at all!?”_

Ah, _he thought then, as the boy's voice rose high again in its scream,_ _and his own stomach turned_ _._ He's still in here.

_But that was when that man's sword pierced through him, and knowing that man, and knowing their strengths, he thought as long as the boy too could step just one foot outside, could turn his eyes and see them waiting there—it'd be all right... even if all the red flooded into his eyes, and he couldn't push him at all._

He'd glanced at Saruhiko, still sitting on the sofa by him, looking pointedly away.

“...Yeah.” There was noise on the other end, the sound of Anna's quiet yet clear _Mikoto..._ and Tatara's murmur, seemingly close by; Izumo had hung up quickly after that.

After handing Saruhiko's phone back to him, he'd finally pulled out his own, still incessantly ringing, and looked down to see it—the name _Munakata Reisi_ flashing.

In the here and now, Kousuke has managed to push the door open with three kittens in his arms through sheer perseverance, his forehead, and the help of a woman inside. The boy on the sofa, his eyes had looked up to find Mikoto's—frozen—before Kousuke's approach, and the subsequent piling of kittens on his hoodie and arms. Mikoto looks away, sliding his jacket off without much thought.

“You'll be adopting him, then,” he says.

“He doesn't have anywhere else to go, considerin' his situation—he has a grasp of Japanese already, but I know English well enough if he needs time to adjust...” Izumo's wringing the cloth around the glass in his hand a little too hard as he finishes, voice low, “There's more to say, but I'll save it for later.” He has customers lurking, but there's not much more to hear. Those bruises and rope burns—whether he'd been abandoned, trafficked, or at the mercy of nothing that deserved to be considered family, if Tatara had reached for his hand and he'd decided on this place as his home—then that's all that needs to be said till any remnant of his former life tries to meet the gaze of any of them.

Tatara, on his part, is fussing over the shopping bag he'd plucked right out of Mikoto's hands, taking out a carton to gently replace the glass in Izumo's hand with it, and then, after Izumo registers it and slowly turns around to place it inside the fridge nearby, does the same with the other one, humming over the flavor shown on it beforehand.

“Pineapple coconut? That's an unusual choice...wanted to try it out, King?”

Mikoto doesn't look at him. “Saruhiko's been bringing home weird lunchboxes...”

“Ah—that's right! I wonder if he'll bring home a boy soon~” the young man in front of him nearly sing-songs. Mikoto simply clucks his tongue as Anna giggles. So he's an accomplice.

“He's thirteen...”

“Whaaat, King! don't tell me you're the type of man who's overprotective of the kid you're raising when it comes to romantic prospects? Can't even bear to think of Saruhiko's eyes shining when he looks at someone at this age? No person's good enough for him? They never will be?”

“Totsuka... You—”

That's when the chime rings above the door again, and Saruhiko steps into Bar HOMRA. Like Mikoto and Anna before him, he notices the boy immediately, his eyes on him a degree away from subtle as he walks up to where the rest of them gather, slinging off his bag.

“Saruhiko, welcome home!” Tatara calls out cheerfully.

His gaze, when it turns to them, is already judging.

“Totsuka's a pacifist, isn't he,” he says flatly, and Mikoto's more or less guilted into calming his close-and-personal pose—he draws back, dampening the annoyance in his expression. Saruhiko pays little mind in any case, having already fixed his attention elsewhere.

“My friend's coming over on Friday so we can start work on our project,” he says to Izumo, before pausing and interjecting—“Please don't overwhelm him— _Kusanagi-san. Totsuka._ _Mikoto._ ”

“Were we berated by a kid just now?” Tatara asks Izumo.

“He means _you_ need to refrain from waitin' by the door till the moment they walk in and you start bombardin' them with camera flashes, Totsuka,” Izumo sniffs.

“I just don't see the problem with collecting memories of first times!” Tatara protests, “ _Besides_ , he mentioned you first, Kusanagi-san! Aren't you the worst busybody when you have it in your mind to be? I bet you'd try to question the poor kid on his background, his parents' income, whether he has extracurricular or artistic pursuits he's invested in, his future major and career goals—”

“Saruhiko's friend...” There's excitement piquing in Anna's eyes, despite her quietness.

Saruhiko's eyes only meet hers for a moment before they fall away awkwardly. “He... Mi—Yata, he's been mentioning bringing a gift, and he's good at making food, so somehow it turns out that he'll be bringing cookie cutters they have at home... He said baking cookies here sounded like it'd be fun, so...” he mumbles most of it out but everyone seemed to grab the gist immediately.

“So he's the type of boy to bring the family gifts...” Izumo muses seriously.

Her mouth is barely upturned, but Anna seems to glow at his words. Mikoto languidly thinks it's curious, how Yata seems to have thought of bringing cookie cutters over only a few days after Anna and Tatara had gone out and bought ingredients to try a hand at making batches, with her quiet admittance on wanting to mold them into cute shapes. Saruhiko, who'd been working on homework at the kitchen table, hadn't seemed to give a whit's care about what had been going on around him.

“Miyata Bicycles?” Tatara asks, puzzled.

“No, Yata! Yata Misaki...” Saruhiko realizes his mistake too late, ducking his head with an impressively flushed face.

“A feminine name, huh... Wait a minute.” Tatara's hand immediately goes to Izumo's arm again, and the slow smile that takes over his face is a little different from usual. “Could it be they're on first name basis already, Kusanagi-san...”

“First name basis and bringing gifts,” Izumo affirms seriously.

“So, we're meeting him then?” Tatara's wiping a tear from his eye, as if he's stirred by the idea. In contrast, his slightly wobbly lips seem a second away from an escaped giggle, from Mikoto's perspective. “— _The boyfriend_.”

Tatara and Izumo manage to say this in unison, and Saruhiko's flushed face instantly whips toward Mikoto's general direction, yelling, “ _Anna!_ ”

She's hiding behind Mikoto already, but jumps a little at the accusation.

“I didn't say anything,” she says, and though most people might not have noticed the change in her even tone, there's displeasure there. Her eyes are deadpan judging Tatara and Izumo, who have the humility to look remorseful almost immediately, Izumo even looking away.

“That's not it— Yata—he's my friend,” Saruhiko grinds out, glaring at the floor.

“Totsuka,” Mikoto says, plainly.

“Ah—sorry! He sounded like a good kid, so,” His hand falls away from Izumo's forearm and he rubs it a little, his own left arm. “We know you're friends—we were too over-the-hill at the thought of meeting this kid with interesting tangerine-based recipes. Sorry, Saruhiko.”

“The two of us—we'll refrain from bein' a bother tomorrow,” Izumo's exhaustion seems to settle back in him after the brief repartee. Mikoto glances at the two boys at the other side of the room.

“Saruhiko, Anna.” Tatara's tone goes soft again, one more typical of him. “You two—you've met him before, haven't you? Eric Solt.”

“He's our friend,” Anna says. Saruhiko doesn't say anything; he's fiddling with the straps on his bag.

“Right?” Tatara smiles gently. “You know already—but he'll be living with us from now on. I know this place can get a little over-the-top, so if he needs help adjusting to anything, would you mind?”

Anna's already turned, heading towards the boys on the furthest sofa—and Saruhiko, surprisingly, follows her, his hands taking up space in his uniform pockets. Mikoto watches, for a little bit, Anna saying with a clearer voice than usual—”Eric,”—in Western dialect that rolls off easy for her age, and a conversation that quietly blossoms between children, before turning away.

“...Oi.”

Izumo and Tatara look at him.

“Why was I included with you two when he said not to cause his friend trouble...”

Izumo seems unable to suppress laughter at that, and Mikoto immediately regrets asking. No, even before asking.

“Mikoto, c'mon... _y_ _'_ _know_ you totally look like a gang leader—I mean, no one's gonna say anythin' 'bout your hair, that's your choice, _but_ —”

He grumbles, folding his jacket smaller. “Everyone's said that even before I changed my hairstyle... It's my face...”

“Aww, King.” Tatara says, and he's obviously trying to hold it back, the smile on his lips. What a rare sight.

 

* * *

 

Reisi presses the last component of his collector's edition three thousand piece jigsaw puzzle in place. He has had, for some hours since he'd come home for the evening, a quiet solitude to bask in. He certainly prefers it to the chaotic din and bedlam that might be found elsewhere in the city. It'd given him time to finish three puzzle sets, after a rather galling round of chess, something which he'd made up for with this old hobby of his, familiar and as soothing as hearing a _shishi-odoshi_ drop rhythmically out near the fields far away.

His phone is lying inconspicuously on one side of the table.

He should start disassembling this ostentatious display of adorable round cats all fighting to get in the way of each other (or sleeping). Maybe afterward, he'll play chess by himself again, in a way that doesn't raise his hackles but proves a good challenge in his mind to lay out strategies; therapeutic. He smiles at the thought but doesn't really move.

It's quiet.

He stares at the bustle of the soft and boisterous scenery in front of him for a while longer, before raising his hand back from his lap to take out the last piece again.

“Sensei.”

Reisi doesn't start—he has, inside him, the ability to predict the potentials of anything standing or set before him, after all. But having become absorbed in constructing a large fluffy catastrophe without glancing at the box, perhaps he'd been a little too preoccupied to note the awakened presence of another life in his house padding about with more precision than the half-conscious acknowledgment of “benign.”

His curious guest peers quietly at him through a half-open door, balancing a wide tray of tea and cookies precariously in his knobby arms.

“Kuroh-kun,” he says, eyes lighting up slightly—from the reflection created by the lifting of his head and the angle of the lamp hitting him precisely from beside the bookshelves behind him, no doubt. “I'd expected that you'd be heading for bed. Come in.”

“It's only 9 PM, sensei.” The contents in Kuroh's arms slide just a bit to one side as he steps into the study, the teas in their cups wavering. Reisi wonders for just a moment whether he should rise to help him, but expeditiously rids himself of the thought. Children don't enjoy being patronized, especially at twelve years of age.

After Kuroh manages to set the tray down perfectly fine—on top of his collectors edition Afternyan Snoozecat puzzle, but that's alright, completely manageable, he should just keep his tea off the tray—he drags one of the chairs closer to Reisi's desk.

“Sensei, don't you have any friends to hang out with in the evening?” the boy inquires right off the bat to his face, in spite of his polite sitting style, scooting only a little in on his seat with his hands rested neatly on his lap. “Since you're relatively young and all, I thought you'd go out with your coworkers... Or is that something teachers don't do? Do they really live a super sad solitary life spent grading papers? —Brother told me that, though in that case I think people should treat those who try educating the hopefuls of the world with respect. It's regrettable if it keeps you from being able to enjoy what's left of your youth.”

Reisi's practiced smile, through the experience of having had to deal with certain characters over countless years, stays frozen on his lips. There's nothing in Kuroh's frank countenance to suggest he'd implied anything other than his sincere feelings in his wording, however.

“Well.” he clears his throat, maybe a little too much. “What of Miwa-san? How might he be fairing right now?”

“Oh... Ichigen-sama just went to bed! Since his illness leaves him tired, and his bones have been aching... But after your chess match he lamented on how you 'shut yourself away like some kind of a hermit to complete a Piyo Piyo Chickapea puzzle instead of continuing to grace us with your company as a proper host, again.'” Kuroh rattles off placidly. “I quoted him in my last statement!” Reisi's eye twitches.

 _Miwa Ichigen..._ The articulation of the name isn't particularly appreciative. _Is this what they mean by 'the pot calling the kettle black'?_

Any irritation he might want to express along the lines dissipates with the surprise of seeing Kuroh's expression change like a switch being flipped in front him, however—the boy's face suddenly glows with warmth.

“He'll be fine though, since me and brother are here!” Kuroh scoots closer, and without the help of any particular natural source Reisi feels like he'd see it, the lights dancing in his eyes. “He's never alone with us beside him!”

Then, in an instant, he seems a little embarrassed. “That's why...”

He's looking down next, at a burning, untouched cup of green tea—but it doesn't take him long to bring his eyes back up.

“If puzzles start feeling boring, I'm here to talk to!” He smiles at him brilliantly. Reisei's taken aback.

“I—” He's not used to honesty, not one so transparent with no brittle stones or smoke of fire behind it. Avoiding it, he falls back, blundering through what's familiar to him— “Ah, well, something like friendship—I don't need it... It's not really compatible in our—in the line of work I'm in...”

He trails off in a mumble that's unlike him, and curses it. Kuroh's frowning already by the end of it, and the eyes that bear up at him are uncomfortably sympathetic.

That's when his phone rings. Reisi, if he were another kind of person, might have started—he almost drops the phone back down as he picks it up.

His fingers falter, pressed over the name.

“I'll pick you up,” Mikoto says the moment he finds the will to answer. “I want to go drinking together, Munakata.”

The irritation that's been bubbling too often around these so-called adults he's meant to work with churns back inside his body before his brain can even finish registering the man's voice.

“I told you to call me at 6 so that we could discuss your _ego_ and plan our next ren—see how work will go,” he snaps.

“'Work,' huh?” Mikoto's laugh is low, the vibration of his vocal cords still spilling over deep and earthy through the receiver. Reisei swallows the dryness in his mouth. “I see. I had to help Anna with homework—hey, don't you start laughing, even inside that head of yours, it'd inflate enough to pop I bet. I used to like reading up on it, the influence of magic in history. Hey.”

It's as if he has the supernatural ability to tell what kind of incredulous expression Reisi's making right now.

“I'll...revise and reflect on your past contributions and my impression of you with this discovery, then,” Reisi manages to say when he recovers, and adds as if in casual conversation, “And as a matter of fact, I was just speaking with a future upstanding member of society too,”—and isn't certain as to why. Kuroh brightens up at that again, Reisi absentmindedly notices.

“Oh? I just saved a kid from being bored to death, you mean.” Mikoto's definitely smirking behind his phone, and the urge to bite back with a barb comes quick.

“Unlike your impulse towards blazing destruction before you can even think about getting serious, some people might actually find it enjoyable to have sensible discussions of merit on a regular basis.”

“Huh...is that so. Speaking of, Saruhiko's been pulling faces at me from across the room at me these past five minutes.” This is said as if he's noting the weather, though there's an inflection in his tone Reisi doesn't quite grasp.

“That's typical of him, is it not?” he says, bemused. “It's been a long time since you've gotten along. Sometimes, I think it's a miracle—”

“I suppose it's an improvement from the days he refuses to look at me at all.” The phone on the other side scuffs with noises of movement, and Mikoto laughs a little, oddly. “I should thank you for being around, shouldn't I? Then he actually talks to me directly.”

The sense of dread rises in him suddenly, and Reisi realizes his mistake a little too late.

“Suoh—he doesn't—” he hesitates, wrongly. “Fushimi-kun doesn't hate you. He's just...”

“Sure,” Mikoto's voice continues to sound light. Then, as he seems to shift even more away from whatever eyes he feels on him, it breaks just a little. “...No, it's—nothing. Whatever.”

Reisi might be a fool.

The things he should say, like—“ _He's just thirteen._ _Many t_ _eenagers become moody with a flux in hormones, it's a typical thing, nothing to_ _fret_ _over.”_ or perhaps most genuinely— _necessar_ _il_ _y—_ “ _You're the one he chose—as an elder, a parent. He loves you.”_ _—_ are the sort of words that stay stuck in his throat.

Instead of those, he blurts out, “At 10.”

People in their line of work don't have friends, he thinks. He's unsure when Mikoto's eyes had begun to change a little when glancing at him, why he's grabbed onto his hand, pushed at his back with his own, persistent, bothersome, _distressing_. He doesn't know why he feels something small and wavering lit inside him as he's moved by him, pace by pace, bringing up from the depths what's too familiar and longing and wistful.

He thinks, if he'd been Mikoto, he'd have hung up on him.

Mikoto replies, instead.

“Yeah?” It's almost as if he's smiling, for some reason, and Reisi hears it—the sound of relief. “Let's go out then, Munakata. I'll meet up with you.”

“...Of course.”

When Reisi hangs up, his heart is thudding. He doesn't comprehend it for a while, staring down at his cooling cup of tea.

“Sensei.”

He looks up, and Kuroh's smiling at him again, wide and beaming.

“You're meeting up with a friend after all?”

“Ah—yes...” That he'd shown such a hopeless side of himself to a child leaves Reisi abashed. “I-I suppose I am.”

But Kuroh somehow seems to brighten up even more, hearing that.

“You can speak to him properly when you're there, then!” he says, head tilting forward and eyes full of the future.

Reisi's quiet at the thought. Then he smiles, too, tentatively.

“Yes.”

Reflecting it back, Kuroh nearly trips while rising with the tray, but he keeps his grip fastened; only a splash of tea spills from the clattering cups. Reisi thoughtlessly watches him reach the door, before calling out to him.

“Kuroh-kun.”

The boy looks back at him, curiously.

“I...have no qualms over having conversations with friends, in truth. I apologize if I came off rudely earlier, and my conduct towards Miwa-san before that. If the three of you...that is...if you wouldn't mind putting up with me, then I'd like it—if we could all have tea soon.”

Neither Kuroh or his smile seem to ever have held anything against him for it.

“Of course!”

Then, the door manages to clumsily shut, and he's left alone again.

Reisi turns to the window after time, and its silence, falls back in place.

There's a city alive and breathing below the stories of the highrise, following the pulse of the people even at night, there for those who had no one, though more often—not. But it melds into it, the unknowable reaches of every direction, spanning terrifyingly far, and full of potentials.

There will be, he muses—as certain as the evening that draws in, and the lights that begin to shine—work to do, soon.

 


End file.
